Environmental governance through metrics: guest introduction

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Acknowledgements

The papers in this special issue come from a summer school organized by the editors at the Munk School of Global Affairs at the University of Toronto in 2018. With funding from Cornell University’s Einaudi Center for International Studies and the Research Committee for Sociology of Agriculture and Food of the International Sociological Association (ISA RC40). This summer school set out to explore the tendency to govern through metrics by comparing empirical research that ranged from climate and more classic environmental metrics to innovative means to value nature through metrics for aesthetics and fairness. The Guest Editors would like to thank the authors and reviewers of the articles included in this special issue for their dedication to the project and their inspiring papers. We must also thank Les Levidow and Achim Rosemann for their constructive comments and continued support throughout the editorial process.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Allison Loconto

Allison Loconto is a Research Professor in sociology at the French Research Institute for Agriculture, Food and Environment (INRAE) and Co-Director of the Interdisciplinary Laboratory for Science, Innovation and Society (LISIS) at Gustave Eiffel University. She is Vice President for Research of the International Sociological Association (ISA), Associate Editor of the Journal of Rural Studies and Chief Editor of the International Journal of Sociology of Agriculture and Food. Her research programme focuses on the governance of transitions to sustainable food systems, specifically on the metrics, models, standards and systems of certification that are part of emerging institutional innovations. Her focus of analysis is on how the responsibility for sustainability in consumption and production is assumed and shared by different actors in food systems at different scales.

Scott Prudham

Scott Prudham is a Professor at the University of Toronto, cross-appointed to the Department of Geography and Planning and the School of the Environment. His research is situated at the intersection of environmental politics, environmental change, political ecology, and political economy. His current research emphasis is on long term agrarian restructuring in the wine sector in the Languedoc-Roussillon region of southern France, with a focus on the articulation of sustainable wine growing; cooperative and independent modes of wine making; and a shift toward (and redefinition of) quality wine in the region. He is author of the 2005 Routledge book Knock on Wood: Nature as Commodity in Douglas-fir Country, and co-Editor of the 2007 Routledge collection Neoliberal Environments: False Promises and Unnatural Consequences. He is also a former Editor of the journal Geoforum, and a past- President of the University of Toronto Faculty Association. For more information, see scottprudham.ca.

Steven Wolf

Steven Wolf teaches and conducts research on environmental governance, which is the interplay of state and non-state actors in environmental management and mis-management. His research focuses on conservation in agriculture and forested landscapes. Blending concepts from sociology and economics, he is pursuing a critical institutional analysis applied to the challenges of carbon sequestration, water quality, biodiversity conservation and global environmental change. He has held appointments at Imperial College, London and University of Stavanger, Norway.